PORT TOWNSEND — After a last gasp of opposition Monday from Boat Haven boat owners, Port of Port Townsend commissioners approved a controversial three-year plan to raise boat moorage fees.
The commissioners, meeting at the Point Hudson Marina Room, unanimously approved the new fee schedule, then acted to create a reserve fund in which to secure dollars to be used only for Boat Haven marina improvements.
Commissioners Chairman Herb Beck said the new rates would generate about $158,000 over three years of “progressive” rate increases.
Over the past two months, the commissioners have been barraged with protests from longtime boat owners who have historically paid lower rates to moor their vessels.
Approved was a 14.8 percent cumulative increase in linear foot rates on boats 20 to 50 feet long for 2005, with increases to 30.6 percent in 2006 and to 48.7 percent in 2007.
Longer boats
As proposed, longer boats are the hardest hit by the rate structure, with 50-foot boats seeing a change from $4.95 per foot to $5.74 a foot in 2005, to $6.66 in 2006 and to $7.73 per foot in 2007.
Boat owners have called the proposal unfair and may result in them having to seek moorage elsewhere.
Port commissioners defended the proposal.
“I don’t expect anybody to move out” of the marina as a result, Beck said.
“We don’t expect the waiting list to get any shorter,” Commissioner Conrad Pirner said of the list that now has 120 Jefferson County residents and 85 out-of-town boat owners on it.